Our Fitness Blog

Why You May Not Be Achieving Your Weight Loss Goals

You think you are doing everything right on your quest to lose weight. You are working hard, exercising everyday, and watching what you eat, but the weight just seems to want to stick around. There are many reasons that may be causing you to not achieve the results that you want. Many are factors that you may never have even considered. Here we take a look at some of the more common reasons that cause our weight loss journeys to stall no matter how hard we try to shed those excess pounds.

You do not drink enough water. Water is essential in helping us stay hydrated. We need it, and as an added bonus, it can help us lose weight. If you drink water before a meal, it can help you eat less because the water can actually make you feel full. Since water has no calories, this can really help you cut back on any excess calories. Also by eating foods with a higher water content, such as fruits and vegetables, you will feel fuller sooner and eat less.

You only find the time to do the minimal amount of exercising. While it is good to fit in a fitness routine any time you can, do not expect to get fast or big results from this. If you use the parking far away from work trick, that is great and better than nothing, but you still need to add more to it to get the results that you want quickly. It is best to do at least thirty minutes of some sort of intense activity that really gets your heart pumping, like running, spin class, circuit training or kickboxing. These activities and others that are intense will burn a lot of calories and help you achieve your weight loss goals quickly.

You overeat healthy foods. It is easy to do this because we think they are good for us, so we can not get too much of a good thing. However, just because a food has certain vitamins and nutrients that we need, does not mean that it is calorie or fat free. It is also best to not be pulled in by the diet, fat free or no trans fat labels on products. It is known that some of these versions may actually be worse for you than the regular versions. You should always look at all the nutritional information of what you eat and follow the recommended serving sizes. Remember that moderation is a great goal in your diet.

You only do cardio. While cardio is an important part of your fitness routine, it should not be the only part. If you want to speed up your weight loss, you need to add in some weight training and resistance training. Weight training can help you prevent any unnecessary workout injuries by strengthening your joints, and it can add to your muscle mass, which is known to increase your metabolism. We all know that if we have a super-charged metabolism, we can burn fat and calories faster than we ever have before. This can help us see the results we want much quicker.

You workout on an empty stomach. Many people think that if they workout before they eat that they will achieve better results; however, this is not the case. Many studies have shown that if you exercise on an empty stomach, you will burn calories from muscle and not fat. We all know that muscle burns more calories than fat, so we want to keep our muscle mass up and our body fat down. So, by exercising hungry, you may be sabotaging your fitness routine. It is best to eat before your workouts to avoid losing any muscle mass and to have the necessary energy to push yourself through your workout.

There are so many ways that we can find to sabotage our weight loss journey. It would benefit all of us to do our research before blaming our diet or fitness routines. It could be just one simple trick or routine we need to add or take away from our diets or workouts to achieve the results that we want. It is also beneficial to experiment with different diets and fitness routines because we all know that what works for one person does not necessarily work for everyone.